The days are getting longer, fruit that has recently emerged from the earth, rather than cellophane, is showing up at markets and in CSAs, and you know what this means, right? It’s time to resist the siren call of pie season and make a galette instead. Galettes are the very best way to bring pie into your everyday life — and yes, I believe your everyday life deserves baked fruit in a buttery, flaky shell — because everything about them is easier. A single crust requires less time and less work. Because it doesn’t have the responsibility of keeping pounds of fruit from soaking into a pie plate, a more tender and flaky dough can be used. The filling uses less fruit and requires less of a shopping commitment. There’s less flavor-occluding sugar and thickeners because galettes are more forgiving of messiness. You don’t need a particular pan or even shape; oblong blobs taste as good and work exactly as well as circles.

There have been twelve galette recipes on this site since I established my membership on Team Galette a mind-boggling 14 years ago, but they all suffer from what I call a specificity problem. This one has a cool shape and ricotta. This one has amaretti crumbs. This one is thicker and barely sweetened. This one is part cheesecake. But when, I have some strawberries, a few stalks of rhubarb, and half a lemon in my fridge and I don’t want to think too hard about things? This is the one I make.

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